The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for the production of meat products, such as cooked ham.
Cooked ham is a popular meat product, which is both mass-produced and hand-made. According to normal procedure, de-boned ham is cured, lightly smoked, and blanched at 70.degree. to 75.degree..
Due to the large demand for cooked ham, other large muscle parts of the pig are now being used, for instance, de-limbed shoulder or neck. If these fleshy parts are not to be pasteurized in tins, aluminum foil, or skins, they are, for the purpose of maintaining their compact form, cooked while tied up in string or netting (particularly plastic netting). This type of method and apparatus for the introduction of meat products into netting has been described, for example, in German Gebrauchsmuster 18 77 878 of Aug. 14, 1963 and German Offenlegungsschrift 22 29 917 dated May 30, 1973. Although the compacting of the meat product can be accomplished in the usual manner, this procedure suffers from a serious problem of unavoidable sticking together of netting and tissue during the processing of the raw or precooked meat. If the netting is removed--for instance, before the cutting of the ham contained therein--individual muscle fibers, and possibly also entire chunks of meat, remain suspended on the net, having been torn out of the ham. In some cases, this can render the product unfit for sale.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a means of production that would, on the one hand, allow such meat products to retain their compact shapes while being smoked and/or heated, and, on the other hand ensure that the surface of the meat would remain intact during removal of the netting before sale. This problem has not been satisfactorily addressed by the prior art.